Chosokabe

The Chosokabe was a Japanese samurai clan native to Tosa Province (modern-day Kochi Prefecture) on the island of Shikoku. The clan claimed descent from the Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang, and the clan's twenty-first leader, Motochika Chosokabe, unified Shikoku during the Sengoku Period. The Chosokabe destroyed the Ichijo clan in 1574 before destroying the Kono and Soga clans; by 1583, Shikoku had been unified. In 1585, Hideyoshi Toyotomi sent 100,000 Toyotomi troops under Hideie Ukita, Takakage Kobayakawa, Motonaga Kikkawa, Hidenaga Toyotomi, and Hidetsugu Toyotomi to invade the island, and the Chosokabe forfeited Awa, Sanuki, and Iyo provinces. Motochika and his son Nobuchika Chosokabe would go on to take part in the Toyotomi invasion of Kyushu in 1587, and Motochika took part in the Toyotomi invasions of Korea during the 1590s. After Motochika died in 1599, his son Morichika Chosokabe became the new daimyo, and he supported the Toyotomi Western Army at the Battle of Sekigahara, leading to the Chosokabe being removed as the daimyo of the Tosa Domain in 1600. After the Siege of Osaka in 1615, Morichika was executed and the clan was ended as a military and political force.